As he celebrates his 65th birthday this year, in November 2000 AD will publish the first of a two-volume series presenting the never-before-collected stories of Dan Dare from its pages. Presented in a beautiful hardcover edition, this will include extensive rare and hard-to-find art by UK Comics Laureate and Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons as well as art by cult Italian artist and 2000 AD legend Massimo Bellardinelli. This is the last, great un-reprinted story from 2000 AD's first issue and will present the entire story re-scanned from the original film, in full colour (where the strip wasn't black and white), digitally restored by 2000 AD's reprographics specialists.
Keith Richardson, graphic novels editor, said: "2015 will be a seminal year for the 2000 AD trade line. The word 'epic' seems so overused these days, but when you have such quality collections as the Dark Justice and the truly gorgeous Apex Edition of Zenith Phase One to name but two of our titles this year, no other expression will do."
Very happy this is coming out. Now if they'd just reprint all the early Future Shocks they'd be no need for me to worry about tracking down the first 39 issues!
Also its more than I could have expected that the colour pages are retained when Keith (or was it MOLCH-R?) mentioned that a while back I was over the moon.
I'll be getting this for sure, it was Dan Dare that first turned me onto Dave Gibbons' work, & it's still among my favorite art from him.
Dan was my favourite character until he vanished with his Cosmic Claw. Can't wait to see what they do with these books!
Does anyone know yet if this will be made available on the 2000ad app, or just as a hardcover edition..?
See Dave Gibbons draw the cover to the forthcoming collection on his fancy etch-a-sketch (17m):
http://www.ign.com/videos/2015/06/02/dave-gibbons-talks-kingsman-the-secret-service-and-watchmen
He describes Alan Moore in glowing terms, despite being excommunicated, and talks a little about 2000ad.
(http://i.imgur.com/6a6HE4p.png?3)